


Reflections of the Heart

by blueberryphancakes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Bodyswap, Friends to Lovers, Humor, I mean, It's All Fine, Light Smut, M/M, Magic, No one dies though, Reality, no one who is directly in the story dies, or even thinks they might, very very brief mention of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryphancakes/pseuds/blueberryphancakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Being told to dress up in a dinosaur onesie and have cereal catapulted at your face is a little odd. Waking up to find that you and your best friend have switched bodies? That’s fucking bizarre.”</p><p>(Or, the multi-chaptered, slightly smutty bodyswap fic that no one asked for. Featuring whiny/annoying!Dan, sassy/beguiling!Phil, unintentional innuendos, intentional innuendos, unnecessary kitchen supplies, and just a pinch of magic).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Phil’s grandmother is dead.

It isn’t a recent development. According to Phil, she died when he was about ten, he thinks, of heart failure or whatever it is that actually kills old people who “go peacefully in their sleep.” And while she may or may not have possessed mystical powers, so far, there hasn’t been any evidence that she will come back.

It’s impressive, then, how she still manages to find a way to ruin Dan’s life.

To be fair, Dan technically didn’t _have_ to agree to help Phil go through the dozens of mildewed cardboard boxes that have been taking up residence in the Lester family attic for longer than anyone cares to remember. He didn’t have to spend one of his precious days off away from his laptop and his sofa crease, gathering cobwebs on his perfectly good shoes and listening to Phil say again and again how he can’t believe that his parents are planning to get rid of all this stuff. He didn’t have to give in the moment Phil said “please” and looked at him with big, watery eyes.

He didn’t have to, really. But how could he not?

“How much longer is this going to take?” Dan asks, sitting on a wooden crate that he hopes is spider-free and resting his chin in his hands. The question definitely doesn’t come out as a whine. He isn’t that childish.

“You don’t have to stay,” Phil reminds him in lieu of an answer. He looks perfectly content sitting cross-legged on the dirty attic floor. He opens a box that Dan is almost certain they’ve gone through already and pulls out what appears to be a normal, if somewhat creepy, antique handheld mirror. “Dan, look at this!”

“It’s my face, Phil. I look at it every day.”

“Not your reflection, the mirror!” He flips it to reveal the green-tinted glass oval through which Dan can see Phil’s face.

“So…it’s two-way glass.”

“Exactly! How cool is that?”

“What purpose could that possibly have? Isn’t the whole point of two-way glass that you can hide behind it so you can see people but they can’t see you? You can’t hide behind that thing.”

Phil frowns and sets the mirror down on the dusty floor beside him. “Does everything have to have a purpose? Can’t some things just be neat?”

“If it’s going to be taking up space in our already-knickknack-filled flat, then yes. It has to have a purpose. Either that or extreme sentimental value.”

“How do you know that this doesn’t have sentimental value to me?” Phil asks, reaching into the box again and blindly pulling out another object. This one looks like a porcelain cat with a missing head.

Dan raises his eyebrows pointedly.

Phil looks down at the broken figurine, grimaces, and places it gently on the floor beside him. “Well it could’ve.” He goes back to rifling through the box.

Dan continues to help as little as possible. After another minute, he sighs dramatically. “Phiiil, we’ve been at this for hourrrs.”

“It’s been twenty minutes.”

“It smells like dead rat and the inside of a hoover up here. I’m pretty sure I inhaled a dust bunny a while ago.”

“Probably happened while you were over there sighing every ten seconds.”

“Sighing is _ex_ haling.”

“Well you’d know, wouldn’t you?” Phil mutters.

“What is that even supposed to mean? Everyone knows…Phil? Phil, are you even listening to me?”

Phil ignores him, effectively answering the question. His full attention is back on the box. He gazes into it, transfixed, and murmurs, “I remember this.”

“What?”

“I remember this,” Phil repeats, pulling a large, brown book out and brushing dust off the cover with his hand. He cracks it open, flipping through the pages, still seemingly mesmerized. “My nan used to read it all the time. She said she was looking up enchantments to help her garden grow, though I always suspected she cast a few minor hexes on the gossipy neighbours.”

“A spell book? Really?” Dan gets up and goes to stand over Phil, peering at the book over his shoulder. “I know you’re a bit superstitious, but you can’t really believe in all that.”

“Why not? Do you have any evidence that magic _doesn’t_ exist?”

“Yeah. _Science._ ”

“You sound like a first-year uni student who’s just taken his first philosophy class and thinks he knows everything.”

“Yeah? Well you sound like a…a twenty-nine-year-old who still thinks he’s a child.”

Phil snorts. “Nice comeback.”

Dan crosses his arms and huffs. “Look, all I’m saying is I think we’re a little too old to believe in things we can’t see.”

“And all I’m saying is that it wouldn’t kill you to keep an open mind.” Phil closes the book and puts it in the box they brought for the things they would be taking home with them.

“Wha—Phil, you can’t be serious. We’re not taking that home with us.”

“Afraid of the big bad spell book?” Phil asks with a smirk. “I thought you weren’t superstitious.”

Dan scowls. “I’m not. But that thing is a huge eyesore and probably full of rat droppings, and I don’t see why we need it.”

“You said I could keep things that had either purpose or sentimental value.” Phil points to the book. “That has sentimental value for me. Plus, I bet it would come in handy as a prop for videos.”

Dan narrows his eyes.

Phil makes his own wider. “Please, Dan?”

A beat of silence. Then:

“Ugh, fine.”

Phil’s pout turns into a triumphant grin. “Thanks,” he says and turns back to his work.

For a moment, the only sound is that of Phil rummaging through another box.

“Besides, if the spells in that book really do work, we couldn’t let my parents give it away. Wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands, after all.”

Dan groans.

* * *

They make it back to the flat with the book of spells, a box of tarot cards with two cards missing, some rune stones, a crystal ball that is probably actually glass, and a cheese grater.

“It could come in handy,” Phil says as they climb the stairs to their flat. “There’s no reason to turn down perfectly good kitchen supplies.”

“Phil, you don’t even _eat_ cheese.”

“But for guests who like cheese.”

“Right, because we have those so often.” Dan grunts and readjusts the box on his hip as they arrive at their front door. He isn’t sure how he ended up being the one to carry Phil’s new-old items, but it probably had something to do with the reappearance of the blue puppy-dog eyes.

In all honesty, Dan’s just glad he talked Phil out of the Ouija board.

Phil unlocks the door and holds it open for him. Dan drops the box the second he passes over the threshold and immediately proceeds to faceplant onto the sofa.

“Hey!” Phil says, bending down to make sure nothing in the box is broken. He looks over at Dan. “Rude.”

“Sorry,” Dan replies, his dull tone making it clear that he really isn’t. “I’m just so tired. Remind me again why we had to wake up so early?”

“Because if we didn’t, we’d be taking the train home after dark or spending the night at my parents’ house. Which of those options sounds good to you?”

Dan shudders, remembering the last time he spent the night at Phil’s family home. For some reason, the guest bedroom had been full of creepy dolls. He hadn’t slept a wink. “Fair,” he says, and buries his face in the cushion once more.

He hears the floorboards creak and soon feels a presence nearby. When he looks up, he finds his friend kneeling next to the sofa, smiling down at him. Whatever bitterness Dan felt over his wasted day dissipates, leaving only warmth in his chest.

“How about I order us some pizza for dinner to make it up to you?”

“Movie too?”

Phil nods. “I’ll even let you decide what we watch.”

The warmth radiates up to his neck and cheeks, and Dan covers his face with his hands. It’s an annoying thing that happens whenever Phil’s voice gets a bit too fond. “Why are you being so nice to me? All I did was bitch and moan all day.”

“You did,” Phil agrees, even as he reaches out to brush Dan’s hair out of his eyes. “But I still appreciate you going with me. I know she died a long time ago, but I was really close with my nan. Being around all her things, knowing that most of them would either end up in the trash or be given away to strangers…it would have been too much to bear alone.”

Dan’s face grows even warmer.

“Plus, I needed someone to carry the box.”

Dan snorts. “Dick.”

Phil ruffles Dan’s hair. “You’re one to talk.” He stands up. “I’m going to order that pizza now. Pick something to watch while I do?”

Dan nods and sits up, hands immediately going to his hair to smooth it back down. While Phil leaves to fetch his laptop, he grabs the television and Roku remotes and navigates to Netflix.

Only, Netflix won’t load.

“Phil!” he calls. “I think the internet’s out!”

No reply.

Dan sighs and turns to the bookshelf where they keep their DVDs. He wonders if there is a single film up there that he and Phil haven’t watched at least twice.

His eyes land on the cardboard box still sitting on the floor at the entrance to the lounge.

He shifts his gaze to Phil’s room, wondering what’s taking so long but still glad that Phil doesn’t appear to be coming back anytime soon, before getting up and walking to the box. He didn’t break anything when he dropped it, he’s relieved to see. With a final glance at Phil’s door, he reaches in and pulls the spell book out.

Just to satisfy his curiosity.

Unfortunately, he soon discovers that all the spells are in a foreign language, and he can’t read a word of them. He thumbs through the pages looking for pictures or English annotations, but he doesn’t find any. He’s about to give up and go back to his film quest when his thumb catches on a dog-eared page.

“Speculum animus,” he mumbles to himself, reading the words at the top of the page. “Sounds gross.”

Just then, quick footsteps sound from the hall.

“Do you have internet in here? Because I’ve run troubleshooting on my computer twice now and…” Phil looks up from his laptop, which is balanced precariously in one hand, and smirks. “Not superstitious, huh?”

Dan glares at him. “I just wanted to see if the things in here were actually supposed to be for plants. Not that anyone would be able to tell. Everything’s in, like, Latin or something.”

“You know, just because Latin is a dead language doesn’t mean that no one can read it.”

“There’s no need to be a smartass.”

Phil closes his laptop and sets it down on the coffee table. “Which one are you looking at anyway?” He crosses the room and hooks his chin over Dan’s shoulder.

Dan tries to keep his breathing under control.

“Hm,” Phil says, studying the page. “What do you think that one does?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t _do_ anything. All these spells are fake.”

Phil walks around to face Dan. “You don’t know that.” His tone is light, but his arms are crossed.

“Come on, now, this is getting ridiculous.” Dan lifts the book a little closer to his face. “Look, I’ll prove it.”

“Dan, what are you doing?”

Dan ignores him. In a clear, steady voice, he begins to read the words off the open page, probably mispronouncing half of them in the process.

“Wait,” Phil says, starting to sound panicky. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Still, Dan ignores him. He finishes reciting the spell and looks up to find a fearful-looking Phil staring back at him. “See?” Dan raises his eyebrows. “Absolutely nothing.”

Phil looks around the flat slowly, as if he’s making sure nothing changed without him noticing. Finally, he shrugs. “I guess.”

Dan shakes his head and chuckles, trying to lighten the mood. He doesn’t know why things feel so tense all of a sudden. “Now, I’m going to reset the router. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just call the pizza place the old-fashioned way and—”

He stops midsentence as Phil collapses to the floor.

“Phil?” Dan drops to his knees and pats his friend’s cheeks. “Phil!”

Phil doesn’t wake up.

“Come on, Phil, this isn’t funny!” He puts two fingers to Phil’s neck and finds that his pulse is steady, which is good because Dan’s own is erratic. Dan is so panicked that he doesn’t even notice when his vision starts to blur at the edges. He does, however, stay conscious just long enough to feel his own limbs give out beneath him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If eye-touching (like to remove contacts) squicks you out, you might want to skip the second section of this chapter.

The first thing Dan notices when he wakes up is that he feels worse than he has in years.

Every bone in his body aches, and despite the rumbling in his stomach telling him he is hungry, he feels far too sick to want food. He opens his eyes and finds himself staring across the room at the sofa.

He doesn’t remember drinking anything the night before, but he thinks he must have if he passed out on the lounge floor. He wonders what made him do that, as he hasn’t been more than tipsy in years. A memory of bickering with Phil flashes before his eyes, and he flushes with guilt. He doesn’t recall them being that angry at each other, but maybe the argument escalated and Dan dealt with his feelings the only way he knew how: drowning them.

Dan is still trying to remember what else happened the day before when he feels something shift against his back.

He freezes.

Suddenly, he’s afraid he might have done something much stupider than simply getting blackout drunk.

He rolls over slowly, fearing all the while that he’s about to come face to face with parts of his best friend’s anatomy he swore he’d never see. Maybe he should be relieved when the sight that meets him isn’t what he expects.

He screams.

Brown eyes fly open, and the person next to him is suddenly just as awake as he is. Dan shoots to his feet and blindly grabs around for the nearest object he can find, hoisting it to his shoulder in preparation for swinging it at the doppelgänger’s head.

“Who are you?” Dan demands, his voice coming out deeper and more threatening than he expected.

“ _Me?_ ” the boy who looks frighteningly similar to Dan squeaks. “Who are _you?_ And why do you look like you’re going to hit me with my cactus?”

Dan lowers the potted plant slowly. “ _Phil?_ ”

The doppelgänger nods like that should be obvious.

A horrible, impossible thought creeps into Dan’s mind. He spins on his heel, looking around frantically until he spots the mirror above the mantle.

He drops the cactus.

“Poe!” Phil exclaims in Dan’s own high-pitched shriek, but Dan isn’t listening. He’s too busy staring at the mirror and touching his face.

No. _Phil’s_ face.

He stares at it a minute longer, watching pale fingers smooth over the sharp cheekbones and stubbly chin before turning back to Phil, who is still staring at Poe the cactus’s broken pot in shock and disappointment. Dan walks up to him.

“Slap me in the face.”

The brown-haired head shoots up, eyebrows drawing together. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not that mad about the cactus.”

“That’s not why I said it.”

Phil eyes him skeptically. “Then why?”

“Because clearly I ingested something I shouldn’t have before I went to bed, and I want out of this freaky dream.”

Phil pokes his tongue out in concentration, and Dan can’t help but think how strange it is to see such a Phil-like expression on the soft, round face. “Listen…other-Phil, I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

Dan groans. He reaches out to grab Phil’s — no, his own — shoulders and forces his friend to look at him. “Phil. It’s Dan.”

Phil’s eyes widen. “You’re Dan?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Dan! Why do you look like me?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Wha—” Phil drops his eyes to the wide, tan hands Dan used to call his own and gasps. He skirts around his flatmate to look in the mirror and proceeds to touch his new face in the same way Dan did just minutes before.

Dan comes up behind him and looks over his shoulder at their reflection. If they both stood perfectly still, he thinks, nothing would seem out of the ordinary. “Now you’re all caught up.”

Phil turns to face him again. “How did this happen?”

“You think _I_ know?”

“What were we doing last night?” Phil asks. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Erm…” Dan says. “We got back from Manchester and you were going to order pizza.”

“Right.” Phil nods. “But the Wi-Fi was out. So I came out here with my laptop and you were reading—”

He stops mid-sentence. Both his and Dan’s eyes grow wide. They look to the cardboard box lying innocently on the floor.

“The book,” they say in unison.

* * *

Phil insists that no problem — even a giant, crazy, impossible, life-altering one — should be tackled before morning coffee.

Dan isn’t sure that caffeine is the best thing for his nerves right now, but as he opens his mouth to say so, his stomach growls again.

This is how they end up sitting in their usual spots at the kitchen table, Phil sipping his coffee while Dan nibbles on a blueberry muffin, both avoiding eye contact and trying desperately to pretend that everything is normal.

Of course, everything _isn’t_ normal. Everything is so far from normal that it’s all Dan can think about, all his mind can concentrate on for more than a second, and it’s only so long before he has to say something about it again.

“Are we really just going to sit here and pretend that everything’s fine?” The words sound bitterer than he intended.

Phil shrugs. “Isn’t it?”

Dan stares.

Phil holds his gaze and takes another leisurely sip of coffee before setting his cup on the table. “No one’s sick or dying.” Dan doesn’t miss the way Phil reaches down to rap his knuckles on the wooden floor, but he resists the urge to roll his eyes. “The situation that we’ve found ourselves in is a little…odd, I’ll admit. But it’s not an emergency.”

“A little odd?” Dan echoes. “A little _odd?_ Sorry, no. Being told to dress up in a dinosaur onesie and have cereal catapulted at your face is a little odd. Waking up to find that you and your best friend have switched bodies? That’s fucking bizarre.”

“Why is it always switching bodies?” Phil mumbles to himself before taking another sip of coffee.

“What?”

“People always call it switching bodies, but I don’t think our bodies switched places. Our consciousnesses did.”

“Bigger issues here, Phil.”

Phil just drinks his coffee.

Dan brings his hand up to rub his eyes. “I just don’t get how you can be so chill about this.” He rubs a little harder. “Or how you can deal with your eyes being so fucking itchy. Jesus. Are they like this all the time?”

Phil pauses mid-sip. “Did you take my contacts out?”

“When would I have done that?”

“Dan! I could get an infection!”

“Oh, _now_ you care.”

“Go take them out.”

“I don’t know how.”

“What do you mean you don’t know how? You stick your finger in your eye and…” he groans, setting his mug down hard enough that coffee sloshes out onto the table. “Forget it. I’ll show you.” He stands up and grabs Dan’s wrist, hauling him to his feet and dragging him to the bathroom.

“Okay. First, make sure your hands are clean.”

Dan looks down at the pale hands he supposes are sort of his now. “They’re pretty clean, I guess.”

Phil pinches the bridge of his nose. “I meant that you should wash them.”

“But you said—”

“Just do it.”

Dan lathers his hands with soap and runs them under warm water, grumbling the whole time. “Now what?” he asks, drying his hands on the nearest clean-looking towel.

“Now you just kind of look up,” Phil demonstrates as he speaks, “pull your bottom lid down, and use your other finger to pull the contact down.”

“You want me to drag it over my eyeball?”

“It’ll be easier to take out that way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dan, I’ve done this a million times. I’m sure.”

Dan gives him a skeptical look before turning to the mirror and tugging his bottom eyelid down. He slowly moves his pointer finger towards his eye, hand shaking. When it’s only a few millimeters away, he pulls back suddenly. “Nope. Nopity nope. Can’t do it.”

“You have to do it.”

“No I don’t. Let’s just go ahead and switch bodies as soon as possible, and then you can do it yourself.”

“But what if it takes a long time?”

“It will if we keep standing here arguing.”

“Look, it’s not even that hard.” Phil reaches towards him.

“Whoa!” Dan backs away from Phil’s hands, which are getting way too close to his face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“If you won’t do it, I will.”

“Phil!”

“Just let me—”

“No, wait, I changed my mind. I can—”

Before Dan can finish his sentence, Phil succeeds in getting close enough to press his finger to Dan’s eye, pulling down and then pinching with his finger and thumb. He pulls back almost immediately, holding up the transparent dome triumphantly.

“You put your finger in my _eye._ ”

“Technically, it’s my eye.” He smirks as he puts the contact in its case. “Now, let’s do the other one.”

“No!” Dan yelps, hands coming up to protect his face. “I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Phil shrugs and leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.

Dan turns back to the mirror, pulling at his other eyelid and trying again. His eyes flit to Phil’s reflection. “Are you just going to stand there and watch me?”

“Got to make sure you actually do it.”

“No faith in me at all.”

“Nope.”

Dan shakes his head and lets out a shaky breath. He brings his finger up to his eye again. “Gross gross gross,” he mutters as his skin brushes the contact. He pulls it down and pinches it like Phil showed him, surprised when the contact comes out easily and doesn’t take part of his eyeball with it.

“Now, was that so hard?”

Dan glares at him, only to realise that Phil is mostly a brown and tan blur. “Holy shit. You really are blind.”

Phil gives him what he assumes is a withering look before reaching across the counter to grab a small, black item which he then pushes onto Dan’s nose. The world comes into sharp focus. “Better?”

Dan nods, turning towards the mirror and admiring the way Phil’s glasses frame his eyes, somehow making them look even bluer. “I don’t know why you don’t wear these all the time.”

“Contacts aren’t so bad once you get used to them.”

“They’re a pain in the arse,” Dan corrects. “Besides, you look good in glasses.”

Phil doesn’t respond, so Dan thinks back on his words. When he realises what he said, he sees the pale face in the mirror turn pink.

“That is…I mean…”

“Dan, it’s okay.” Phil’s tone is calm and reassuring, but one side of his mouth is lifted in a smirk. “I can take a compliment.”

Dan grimaces. “Ugh. Do I always look like that when I’m being cocky?”

Phil glances at the mirror and then back at Dan. “Yep.”

“Well that needs to stop.” Dan turns and starts walking back to the lounge. “Come on, it’s still morning and I’m already tired of looking at my own face. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

“Are you sure this is the right spell?”

“Positive,” Dan fibs. He points to the folded corner of the page. “It was dog-eared just like that. I remember.”

“Okay, okay,” Phil says. “I believe you.”

Dan tries not to wince at the pang of guilt that he feels at the amount of faith Phil places in him. Dan has much less faith in himself. “So, we just…say the spell again?”

Phil shrugs. “If it switched us once, I don’t see why it wouldn’t switch us again.”

“It knocked us out cold last time,” Dan points out.

“Well sorry, but you have to be unconscious for a little while to get your body back. Who got us in this mess again?”

Dan crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re snippier when you’re inside my body.”

Phil raises his eyebrows.

Dan’s face grows warm. “I mean…when you’re in me…no. When your consciousness is—”

Phil holds up a hand. “I get it.” He looks down at the book, which is already open to what Dan hopes is the right page. “Do you want to read it or should I?”

“I did it last time.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And now it’s your turn.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Because it’s so much trouble to read a few lines of Latin.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Fine.” Phil sighs and then recites the spell, going slowly and carefully in an attempt to pronounce the words to the best of his ability.

They wait.

After a minute of complete silence, Phil huffs. “Well that didn’t work.”

“You think?” Dan holds out his hands. “Here, give it to me.”

“I thought it was _my_ turn.”

“Yes, well, apparently I’m the only magically-inclined person in this household, so I’ll just have to do it myself.”

“Don’t strain yourself too hard.”

Dan chooses not to reply. He delves right into the spell, spouting the foreign words as quickly and carelessly as he did the first time.

Nothing happens.

“Are you _sure_ it’s the right one?”

“Quiet. I’m concentrating.”

Dan recites the spell again, slower this time.

He says it as quickly as possible.

He even tries reading it backwards.

“You broke it,” he tells Phil after his fifth attempt.

“ _Me?_ What did _I_ do?”

“The spell worked perfectly before you tried to do it.”

Phil glowers. The effect is less intimidating with brown eyes and soft cheeks, but Dan still gulps. “Okay. First of all, I seriously doubt it works like that.” He takes a step forward; Dan takes a step back. “Second of all, even if it did, I only tried the spell first because _you told me to_.” He keeps moving closer. Dan’s back hits the wall. “And third, need I remind you again _who got us into this mess?_ ” Phil is now hovering mere inches away, tilting his head down and using what little height Dan usually has on him to his advantage.

Dan clears his throat and lifts a single finger. “I think it’s ‘whom.’”

“No, ‘whom’ is objective, and in that sentence—” He stops himself short and narrows his eyes. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“Being a little shit.”

“Harsh words, Philip. I see being me has already had an effect on your vocabulary.” Phil’s nostrils flare, and Dan puts his hands up. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You know I fall back on joking insults and lowbrow humour when I’m stressed. I can’t help it.”

“I think you can,” Phil says, crossing his arms. He then leans back a little, and Dan thinks he sees his features soften. “But yeah, I know you aren’t any happier about this than I am.”

There’s a moment of silence before Phil continues, “We’re going to fix this, you know.”

“But what if we can’t?”

“There has to be a way. I just know it.” He shakes his head and places his hands firmly on Dan’s shoulders. “And whatever it is, whatever it takes, Dan, I promise you, we’ll find it. You know how I know that we will?”

“How?”

Phil looks him dead in the eye, and even though the eyes boring into Dan’s are brown, the earnest look in them is distinctly Phil. “Because we’re not going to give up.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this is where the smut comes in (it's just masturbation, but given the nature of the fic, you might see where some complications might...ahem.....arise).
> 
> In some timezones this chapter isn't late.

“I give up.”

“But I’m only halfway through the book,” Phil says without looking up. From the looks of it, “halfway” is a generous estimate.

“Phil, we’ve been at this all day,” Dan complains, removing the glasses perched on his nose and rubbing his palms into his eyes. He isn’t even exaggerating this time; Phil has been pouring over the spell book all afternoon, his computer by his side, going through the tedious process of translating spells.

As it turned out, the spell Dan thought was the right one actually had something to do with magical fertilizer. (Phil couldn’t be too mad though; he said the houseplants looked better than ever). After that, Phil started from the beginning, going through spells one by one and trying to figure out what each of them did. There are a few that he thinks might come in handy later, but other than a spell for keeping apples fresh, his efforts have been fruitless.

Dan, meanwhile, has been placed on internet-based research duty. Which has mostly meant sifting through dozens of pages on Yahoo Answers before giving up and scrolling mindlessly through Tumblr, only to feel guilty and repeat the process every hour or so, but Phil doesn’t need to know that.

“Do you want to take a break for dinner?” Phil asks.

“I want some dinner,” Dan replies. “And then I want to go to sleep.”

“It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

“It’s been a long day. And for what? We’ve gotten nowhere.”

“I suppose it is kind of tedious,” Phil admits, seemingly to himself. “Maybe we should try a different approach.”

“I hope you mean tomorrow,” Dan says. “Because the only thing I want to approach tonight is my bed.”

That gets Phil to look at him. “I thought you wanted this fixed as soon as possible.”

“I do. But it sounds like this is going to take more thought than we initially anticipated, and right now, my brain is fried.”

Phil looks at him for a minute more, contemplating, before sighing deeply. “Alright.” He plucks a bright green sock off the floor, tucking it between the pages of the book to mark his place before closing it. “Maybe we’ll have more luck after a good night’s sleep. Still up for that pizza we never got last night?”

Dan grins. It’s still weird seeing his own body standing across from him, hearing his own voice without Dan himself saying a word, but he is starting to get used to the idea that this is Phil, and that’s somehow comforting. At least they’re in this strange mess together. He plops down on the floor next to his friend, watching Phil navigate to the Domino’s website and get their usual order without asking.

Things are starting to feel almost normal.

* * *

Dan feels strange.

Morning light is streaming through the cracks in his blinds, giving the dark grey tones of his bedroom a soft, yellow glow. He’s awake a little earlier than usual, he notices. Maybe that’s why he feels slightly off, why his bed doesn’t seem to fit the contours of his body quite as well as it usually does, why everything looks so blurry.

He rubs his eyes but the blurriness doesn’t go away, and he eventually gives up and stretches languidly, hearing his shoulder pop as he does so and instantly feeling better. He looks down at the lump beneath the blankets. Perhaps a leisurely morning wank is just what he needs to feel like himself. He reaches under the duvet.

That’s when he catches sight of pale skin and a knobby wrist.

He keeps staring at the foreign hand while he blindly reaches for his nightstand with his other hand, heart hammering as his fingers collide with hard plastic. He slips the glasses into his nose and his bedroom comes into focus.

“So, guess it wasn’t a dream then,” he mutters to himself, looking around the room. He looks down again, and he can actually see himself twitch through the covers. He was only half-hard when he woke, but now he is aching, more excited about being in Phil’s body than he has been in the last twenty-four hours. He didn’t know such a thing would have this kind of effect on him, and he isn’t sure whether to feel ashamed or not, but his mind is a little distracted at the moment. Add it to his ever-growing list of kinks, he thinks, right before he thinks _fuck it._

He reaches under the covers again, only to stop short for the second time.

This isn’t just rubbing one out to the _thought_ of occupying Phil’s body. This is actually jerking off _in Phil’s body._ And while that thought makes his cock throb, he realises he can’t do anything about it. Technically speaking, it isn’t his body. It wouldn’t be right.

He has just resigned himself to thinking about the Queen and maybe taking a cold shower if necessary when there’s a knock on his bedroom door.

“Er,” he says, scrambling to bring his knees up to his chest to hide the evidence of his desire. “Come in!”

The door opens a crack, and shy brown eyes peer inside. “Morning,” Phil says, remaining in the hallway.

“Morning,” Dan echoes. “Would you, er, like to come in?”

Phil shakes his head. “No, I’m good out here.”

Dan tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…” Phil’s fingers, which are curled around the side of the door, start tapping a rhythmless tune. “I woke up early to look through the book some more, and I think I may have found the spell. The one that switched us the first time, I mean.”

“Oh! Well that’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“So do you want to come in and—”

“No,” Phil says quickly. “I mean, why don’t you come into the lounge?”

Dan squints. “Why don’t you come in here?”

“Because…” Phil says, trailing off and looking frustrated. “’Cause…” he tries again, then sighs. He opens the door fully and steps inside, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to meet Dan’s eye.

There is a noticeable tent in his pyjama bottoms.

“Oh,” Dan says.

“Yeah.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Dan says for an entirely different reason.

“Please stop saying that,” Phil says, misunderstanding. “It’s not…I didn’t mean to. I just woke up with it and didn’t think I should…I figured it would just go away but…”

“How long have you been up?” Dan asks and immediately regrets his words.

“Almost an hour,” Phil says, expression changing from guilty to amused to concerned in the time it takes for Dan to blush. “That’s not…does that happen to you a lot?”

“No,” Dan says, hoping that the Earth will open up and swallow him whole.

“Because there’s no shame in going to a doctor if—”

“Phil. Relax. Maybe it’s just part of the spell.”

Phil cocks his head to the side. “What makes you think that?”

Dan’s eyes grow wide. He stares at Phil for ten solid seconds before realising the full extent of his fuck-up. Deciding it’s best to get it over with, he throws the covers back.

“Oh,” Phil says.

“Don’t you start.”

“And you haven’t…”

“I didn’t think it’d be right.”

Phil nods, clearly having had the same thought. He pads across the room and sits gently on the end of Dan’s bed. He’s facing the piano, but Dan can still see the erection straining against his pyjamas, right next to the hands folded carefully in his lap. “What if…what if I told you I was okay with you…doing that? Touching yourself. Or touching me, as the case may be.”

Dan’s mouth dries up. Another part of him, at the same time, grows slightly damper. “You’re…giving me permission to…to…”

“To masturbate. While in my body. Yes.”

Dan nods. “Thanks,” he says, wanting to slap himself even as the word leaves his mouth. But really, what is he supposed to say in this situation? “You can too,” he adds quickly. “Take care of your situation, that is.”

Phil turns his head to look at Dan over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Are you sure? You don’t need to feel obligated to let me do that just because I said you could.”

“No, it’s okay,” Dan reassures him, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “I don’t mind, really. Go nuts.”

Phil’s lips twitch.

Dan wonders, with his recent discovery that magic actually exists, if it is possible for a person to spontaneously combust from embarrassment. “It was an accident, I swear,” he wails, burying his face in his hands.

“Been having a lot of those lately, hm?”

“I hate you.”

“Is that what that is, then? A hate boner?”

Dan groans. “Just…just go. Take care of” — he waves his hand in the direction of Phil’s crotch — “that.” The thought crosses his mind, just for a second, that he could ask Phil to stay. Since they’re in each other’s bodies, if they helped each other, it would still technically count as masturbation, right? They wouldn’t even have to look at each other while they did it.

He glares at his lap. Of course, that’s a terrible idea and would only make things more awkward, not less. Clearly he’s thinking with the wrong head.

When he looks up again, Phil has already slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Dan lets out a sigh of relief, only to tense up again when he remembers what Phil just told him.

Phil said Dan could touch Phil’s dick.

And Dan is about to do it.

“Holy shit,” he says, covering his eyes with one hand and palming the bulge in his boxers with the other.

“Holy shit,” he repeats as a little bit of pressure finally eases off and even more arousal floods through him. He doesn’t waste any more time before using both hands to push the boxers down to mid-thigh.

“Holy _shit.”_

Phil is _huge._

Dan wraps his hand around the base silently, reverently, shaking a little. Dan wouldn’t consider himself small, exactly, but the image before him is certainly more impressive than the one he is used to seeing. He remembers that Phil’s hands are smaller than his own, but that just highlights the striking contrast between the slender fingers and the thick shaft, almost too different to belong to the same person. Not to mention the fact that Phil has a good two or three inches on Dan in length. He has the strangest urge to hunt for a ruler, but he isn’t sure that knowledge of Phil’s exact length is something he can live with.

He pumps his fist slowly at first, leaning back on his elbows and craning his neck to watch his work. The glasses start to slip down his nose after a few seconds, and that only reminds him again whose body this is. He barely manages to bite back a moan.

He ends up with his other fist partially shoved into his mouth, biting his knuckles to keep from making too much noise. It’s a good thing he thinks to do so early on, because when he swipes his thumb over the slit, he barely manages to muffle Phil’s name.

Dan comes embarrassingly fast, doing his best to keep his eyes open so he can watch the milky substance shoot onto the equally milky skin of Phil’s stomach. He spends several seconds just staring at it, panting, before reaching into his bedside drawer for a box of tissues.

Although…

He puts the tissues down and runs a finger through the come, collecting as much as he can on his finger. He almost brings it to his mouth on impulse, but then he doesn’t.

 _What do you think you’re doing?_ his brain screams at him.

 _Phil said I could get off in his body,_ Dan reminds it.

_Yeah, but he didn’t say you could do that._

Dan groans for a much less pleasant reason than before and grabs the tissue box again, grumbling to himself as he cleans up as quickly as possible, pulls on some clothes, and leaves to join Phil in the lounge.

Only, Phil isn’t there.

Dan takes a seat on the sofa, trying not to think about the reason Phil still isn’t back. He fails, of course, and his spent cock gives a feeble twitch. He crosses his legs and thinks about taxes.

Another minute passes before Dan hears the telltale _creak-click_ of a door opening and closing swiftly. Phil appears in the lounge a moment later with his hands stuffed in the pocket of his Adventure Time hoodie. He doesn’t hesitate in the doorway or clear his throat awkwardly; he simply walks to the sofa at a leisurely pace, sits down next to Dan, and reaches for the spell book on the coffee table. He is the picture of cool, calm, and collected.

Except for the fact that he won’t quite meet Dan’s eyes.

“So I think this might have been the spell,” Phil says, flipping the book open to a page bookmarked with a cactus-speckled sock. He scoots the book over so it rests half in his lap, half in Dan’s. “Look familiar?”

“Speculum animus,” Dan reads off the top of the page, and suddenly he wants to hit himself. “Of course! I remember now. It sounds like something you’d shove up an animal’s—”

“Loosely translated,” Phil interrupts before Dan can go any further. “It means something along the lines of ‘mirror of the soul.’” He shifts his gaze to Dan then, eyes flitting over his face with what Dan can only describe as nervousness before turning his attention back to the page. “Now” — he clears his throat — “I’ve, erm, done some digging, and it turns out that there are several words for ‘soul’ in Latin. This particular one doesn’t just mean soul as in a person’s non-corporeal self. It’s something more along the lines of a person’s mind or…or their…”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the Latin lesson,” Dan says, as Phil seems to be struggling with his words, “but shouldn’t we just go ahead and, you know, try it?”

“Oh.” Phil nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we should.”

Phil tries it.

Then Dan tries it.

Then Phil tries it again.

“It’s hopeless,” Dan says, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “We’re going to be stuck like this forever.”

“No we’re not.” Phil grabs his laptop and starts typing Latin words into Google. “There must be something in the spell that will tell us why it doesn’t work twice. Or maybe there’s a counter-spell…”

“Or maybe we should just start working on our impressions of each other. We’ve already pretty much morphed into a single entity over the years anyway. The viewers probably won’t even notice.”

“Oh sure, that’ll work great. Until we try to film another gaming video and can’t get through two minutes without you swearing up a storm.”

“Maybe if we just play nice, mellow games from now on. I bet we could still play the Sims so long as we don’t make Dil or Tabitha do anything too adventurous. Assuming no one gets abducted again.”

“It’s not going to be an issue,” Phil says, flipping to the next page of the spell book and Googling another Latin phrase. “I’m going to fix it.”

“ _You’re_ going to fix it? How do you know _I_ won’t fix it?”

“You’ve already given up, haven’t you? Wasn’t that what that whole speech was about?”

“No.” Dan crosses his arms over his chest. “Maybe. I don’t know. I still think we’re approaching this from the wrong angle.”

“How would you suggest we approach it then?”

“Well…well. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t waste time looking up what specific kind of _soul mirror_ this spell was.”

Phil’s head shoots up.

“I mean,” Dan continues, “do we really need to know the English translations for everything? It helped us find the spell, sure, but that still didn’t switch us back, so wouldn’t it be more productive to spend our time brainstorming a different plan? One that doesn’t involve us spending hours upon hours looking through a book that’s thicker than—”

“Shut up for a second,” Phil says, bringing a finger dangerously close to Dan’s lips and staring into the middle distance. “What did you say a second ago?”

“Er,” Dan says, “I said that we’re wasting time?”

“Not that.” Phil shakes his head. “You said something about what _kind_ of mirror it was.” Phil starts typing something into his computer again. “All this time, I’ve been focusing on the soul aspect, on the parts of us that were actually switched. But what if that wasn’t the important part? What if the spell meant ‘mirror’ in a more literal sense?” He turns his laptop to show Dan what’s on the screen.

Dan squints. “An explanation of how two-way mirrors work?”

“I didn’t really think about it before, but two-way mirrors rely on there being more light on one side than the other. Which side is reflective has nothing to do with the mirror itself and everything to do with the lighting.”

“So…” Dan says, trying to put the pieces together, “that mirror we found yesterday, when you flipped it over, nothing should have changed. Which means it must have been…”

“Magical,” Phil finishes for him. “A magic mirror.”

“And you think it might have had something to do with the spell?”

“It was in the same box, and now we find out that the word ‘mirror’ is actually in the spell’s name? I think it’s fairly likely.”

Dan shakes his head, a slow grin forming. “Have I ever told you you’re a genius?”

“Not so much these days as you did in 2009,” Phil says, smirking. “But yeah.”

Dan blushes.

Suddenly, Phil closes his laptop and jumps up from the couch. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Dan asks, already trailing close behind.

“Manchester.” Phil grabs his keys and opens the front door. “We need to get that mirror before my parents get rid of it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over a week without updating she comes back with a shitty filler chapter

“I don’t get why we can’t just ask your parents to mail it to us.”

“Do you want to explain to them why we need a very specific mirror that we didn’t need two days ago?” Phil asks as they board the train. He takes a window seat and faces the glass panel instead of Dan. “Besides, they should both be at work right now. With any luck, we’ll be done before they even get home.”

Dan crosses his arms as he sits down beside him. “I still think you should text them or something, just to ask them not to get rid of anything before we get there. You could tell them you want to take a second look or something.”

“I’m telling you, it isn’t necessary. It’s not like they’re going to be moving boxes while they’re at work.” He pulls out a pair of earbuds, plugs them into his phone, and pops them in his ears. “Relax.” He fiddles with his phone for a moment, and soon Dan can hear the faint thrum of a muffled bassline. It’s strange because Phil rarely wears headphones for anything other than editing videos, especially in public. He’s more likely to choose to listen the world around him than to drown it out like Dan often does.

Dan stares at him for a moment, taking in the distant, dreamy expression that looks so foreign on Dan’s features, before pulling out his own earbuds and mirroring Phil’s actions. He puts his music on shuffle and skips each song until he comes to something appropriately angsty and loud. Closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat, he lets Patrick Stump’s voice and the steady rhythm of the train carry him away.

* * *

“We’re here.”

Dan wakes to a warm pressure on his forearm and a soft voice in his ear. He blinks a few times, adjusts the glasses that have slid down his nose, and looks over to find that the warmth is Phil’s hand, neither grabbing nor patting his arm but holding it. Phil is still staring out the window, or maybe he is staring at it.

Dan meets his eyes in the reflection. He nods once before standing up.

Manchester Piccadilly Station is buzzing with noise, unusually crowded for late-morning on a Tuesday. For some reason, Phil doesn’t let go of Dan’s arm and continues to hold on as Dan leads him to the exit. Whether he’s doing it out of reassurance, forgetfulness, or the fear of being separated, Dan isn’t sure, but he doesn’t draw his arm away until they’re outside flagging down a cab.

By the time the cabbie sets off for the Lester residence, Dan is very much awake. His leg bounces up and down as he watches cars go by and tries to clear his head. He wishes he could go back to sleep so he wouldn’t have to notice how awkward things have felt between him and Phil all morning. How the usually companionable silence they share is now tense and uncomfortable.

How Phil still won’t look him in the eye.

_At least this mess will be fixed soon_ , he thinks as they pull up to the house. He jumps out of the cab as quickly as possible, wincing when he realises he left Phil to pay their fare. He can always pay for the ride back, he supposes.

He hurries down the driveway and bounds up the steps, folding his arms and waiting for Phil to come unlock the door. He taps his fingers against his bicep and looks around the yard as Phil finally gets out of the cab only to freeze in place. Dan follows his gaze and immediately wants to slap himself. Because maybe, if Dan hadn’t been in such a hurry, he would have noticed the blue sedan parked in the garage.

It is at that moment that the door behind him squeaks open.

Dan spins on his heel to find Phil’s mother standing in the doorway in a bathrobe, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Phil?”

Right. She doesn’t know about the body-switching thing. Dan only allows himself a second of internal screaming before plastering a grin on his face. “H-hey, Mrs—” He cuts himself off with a fake cough. “I mean…Mum.” He rests his hands on his hips and tries to look calm. “What are you doing here?”

Mrs Lester’s forehead wrinkles in confusion.

“That is to say,” Dan adds before she can respond, “don’t you have work today?” He glances over his shoulder to find Phil standing at the bottom of the steps looking just as clueless as Dan feels. Unlike Dan, however, he isn’t even trying to speak up and help them out of this situation, which is completely unfair because Phil was the one who insisted that his parents wouldn’t be home. Suddenly, Dan doesn’t feel so guilty about making Phil pay for the cab.

“Well, ahem, usually,” Mrs Lester says, and Dan turns his attention back to her. She sounds hoarse, he notices. “I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, I’m afraid. So I called in sick.”

“Of course,” Dan mutters. Just his luck.

“Pardon?”

“Er, I mean, of course you did! Look at you. You look awful.”

Her eyebrows draw even closer together.

 “Not that…you’re ugly or anything. You’re beautiful! I just meant…” Dan looks back at Phil just in time to see him cover his eyes in mortification. “Can I make you some tea?”

“Phil,” Mrs Lester sighs, “not that I’m not pleased to see you, but what are you doing here?”

“Oh! Right, that. Well, erm, you see, Ph-Dan and I, we just wanted to—”

“We were hoping to have another look around the attic,” Phil says, finally climbing the stares and helping Dan get his foot out of his mouth. “If that’s okay with you, Mrs Lester.”

“Well yes, of course. That’s fine.”

Dan smiles at her in appreciation.

“But…”

Dan’s smile fades.

“But? Why but?”

“Well, it’s just…is there something specific you wanted?”

Dan and Phil exchange a look. She couldn’t possibly have guessed what they’re after, could she?

“No,” Phil says slowly. “Phil thinks we might have missed a few boxes the other day. We left a little early on account of the fact that I wouldn’t stop complaining.”

Dan glares at him.

“I see.” Mrs Lester nods. “Well, you’re welcome to have a look around, though I’m afraid you’ll find that there isn’t much left.”

Dan can actually feel the colour drain from his face. What little there was in Phil’s pale cheeks, anyway. “What? What do you mean there isn’t much left? Why isn’t there much left? Where’d it go?” He fires the questions out in a single breath.

Phil’s mother is starting to look concerned again. “Your father took most of it to the charity shop on his way to work this morning. He couldn’t fit quite all of it in his car though, so there are still a few boxes left, if you wanted to—”

“Is there a handheld mirror in any of the boxes that are still here?” Dan interrupts.

“I’ve no idea.” Mrs Lester tilts her head. “Didn’t you say you weren’t looking for anything specific?”

“Erm…we’re not. I was just…”

“I think it’s a sentimental thing,” Phil says, voice soft. “He won’t even talk to me about it.”

Phil’s mother nods, expression turning sympathetic, and Dan could practically kiss his angel of a best friend. Not that he doesn’t usually want to anyway.

“Mrs Lester,” Phil continues, “how about I make you some tea while Phil goes up to the attic to see if he can find whatever it is he’s looking for?”

She smiles warmly. “That’s very kind of you, Dan. I’d love some tea.”

Dan scowls.

On second thought, Phil Lester is a conniving little shit, and Dan hates him a lot.

* * *

When Dan comes downstairs later, it is to find the two Lesters sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of tea wrapped in Mrs Lester’s hands and a cup of coffee in Phil’s. They’re speaking in hushed tones, practically giggling like schoolchildren, and Dan feels a wave of envy over the fact that, even when Phil looks like Dan, he gets along with his parents better than Dan ever has with his own.

“Oh, hello, Phil,” Mrs Lester says when she notices Dan’s presence. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Dan shakes his head. “I don’t suppose you know what charity shop Dad went to?”

“Sorry, love, afraid I don’t.” She looks genuinely apologetic. “I could ask him though. Did I tell you he finally learned how text messages work?”

“That’s okay,” Phil pipes up. “We can do it.” He stands up and makes his way around the table to stand next to Dan. “We should go, but it was lovely seeing you, Mrs Lester. Hope you feel better soon.”

“Thank you, Dan.” She smiles over the rim of her teacup. “It was nice to see you too.”

As they walk towards the exit, Dan prepares himself for an interrogation, for Phil to ask if he is absolutely sure the mirror wasn’t in the attic. Instead, Phil remains silent as he hands Dan what appears to be a travel mug. Dan didn’t notice him carrying it before, and he wonders — not for the first time — if Phil really is magic.

Dan lifts the lid. He is met with the bittersweet smell of freshly brewed coffee.

“Figured you’d want a cup too,” Phil explains, “even if we didn’t have time to stick around and drink it here.”

“Thanks.” Dan takes a sip. Black with a little bit of sugar, just the way he likes it.

“No problem,” Phil says as they walk outside. He pulls out his phone, which shows that he texted his father some time ago and that his father has already replied with the address of the charity shop. Phil stares down at it as he raises his hand to flag down a cab. One pulls up beside them shortly. Phil opens the door for Dan, but not before looking him dead in the eye and saying in a flat tone: “Now get in, loser. We’re going shopping.”

Dan spits his drink all over the backseat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M SORRY THIS TOOK SO MUCH LONGER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD but hey at least it’s kinda long? Also, just a heads up, this is the second to last chapter. Not sure when the final chapter will be up, but as classes start again for me tomorrow, it will either be a long time or a very very short time, depending on which thing I end up procrastinating more.

Four hours later and twenty pounds poorer, they make it back to the flat with multiple shopping bags dangling from their wrists.

“Look, all I’m saying is that when life gives you buy-one-get-one candles, you don’t say no.”

“And all I’m saying is that it wouldn’t have been that hard to narrow it down to the two or four you liked best,” Dan replies, setting his armload of bags on the kitchen table and pulling a candle out at random. “What even are some of these scents? This one is just called ‘Twilight.’ Is that in reference to the time of day, or is this going to make the flat smell like a sparkly vampire?”

“Guess we’ll find out.” Phil sets his own bags down next to Dan’s. “Hey, maybe we can even light a few when we try the spell again. Like, to make it stronger.”

“Phil, if there’s one thing I’m taking away from this experience, it’s _not_ to mess around with magic any more than I absolutely have to.”

“Spoilsport,” Phil mutters.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Come on, old sport.’” Phil lifts the mirror out of one of the bags and wiggles it back and forth.

Dan squints skeptically, but then Phil flashes him a tongue-poking-out grin. Even though the mouth is technically Dan’s, it manages to mimic the familiar smile so well that Dan still melts a bit.

Damn Phil Lester.

“Alright,” Dan sighs. “Let’s get this over with.” He follows Phil into the lounge.

Phil takes the book off the coffee table and sets it on the floor before plopping down in front of it and crossing his legs. Dan sits opposite him, wondering why they couldn’t just sit on the couch.

“Now what?” Dan asks.

“Now we just…” Phil places the mirror on top of the open book and peers at the page. He squints at it for a few seconds before flipping it over and then back. “Huh.”

“Is that a good ‘huh’ or a bad ‘huh’?”

“Well…it’s not good, per se.”

“Then what is it, per se?”

“Er…” Phil scratches the back of his head. “Well it’s, er…”

Dan grabs the book and spins it around to face him. He stares at the page through the mirror for a long moment, but the words still look like gibberish to him. “Is there something I’m missing here? Because this just looks like a bunch of Latin to me. In fact—” he leans a little closer, trying to make out the words better through the dark glass “—did anything change at all?” He lifts the mirror. The spell appears unchanged.

“That’s sort of the, er, thing…”

Dan stares at Phil.

He stares.

And stares.

And stares.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he finally says, “that I went all the way to Manchester, pretended to be you in front of your ill mother, braved a spider-infested attic alone, and spent ten pounds at a charity shop because you blew all your cash on candles, all for a dirty old mirror that  _isn’t even magic?_ ”

“Maybe?”

“ _Phil._ ”

“Well how was I supposed to know it wouldn't work? That’s where the plot seemed to be headed!” He lifts the mirror, adjusts the page so the spell is reflected in it. “Maybe if we just…”

“Here, let me see it.”

“No, I have more ideas. If we say the spell backwards, maybe?”

“I already tried that. Yesterday.” Dan grips one side of the mirror. “Give it to me.”

Phil clutches the other side tighter. “Why? What are you going to do with it?”

“I just want to see it. Maybe there’s something you missed.” Dan pulls the mirror towards himself.

“Like what?” Phil pulls it back.

“I don’t know,” Dan pulls it again, rolling his eyes. “I’m figuring things out as I go.”

“Oh, so you’re going in without a plan.” Pull. “Kind of like you did when you decided to recite a spell with no idea of what it actually did.”

“It wasn’t _supposed_ to do _anything._ ” Pull.

“Yet it did. Maybe if you listened to me for once—”

Dan doesn’t know why he does it. Maybe he’s tired of fighting or his hands are tired of holding on, but when Phil tugs on his side of the mirror again, Dan lets the other side slip through his fingers.

Phil lets out a surprised yelp and falls backwards, arms swinging back behind his head. The mirror flies out of his hands, landing with a heart-stopping _crash_ on the hard floor.

Phil, now on the floor as well, tilts his head back to look at the shattered glass. He stares at it for a solid minute before lifting his head to level his gaze on Dan.

“Erm,” Dan says. “Oops?”

* * *

“Phil?”

Dan knocks on Phil’s bedroom door again, the third time in as many minutes. It has been hours since the mirror broke, since Phil calmly stood up, left the room without a word, and didn’t return. Dan, figuring it was best to give his friend some space, stayed in the lounge and tried to distract himself with some mindless scrolling, but as night began to fall and the flat remained silent, he grew worried.

“Phil!” he repeats as he knocks again. “Please open up. I’m sorry about the mirror.”

Dan hears a door open, but it isn’t the one he has been knocking on. He whirls around to find a sleepy-eyed Phil standing in the doorway of Dan’s bedroom, the black-and-grey duvet draped over his shoulders.

“What is it?” Phil asks. He sounds exhausted.

“Phil,” Dan says, anxiety melting into gentler concern. “What are you doing in there?”

“Napping.” Phil pulls the duvet tighter. “Or I was. Figured I might as well get used to staying in there, if I’m going to be you forever.”

“It’s too late in the day for a nap, if you want to sleep at all tonight,” Dan chides, though his voice is soft. “And what is this business about you being me?”

“That mirror was my last idea.”

“That doesn’t mean there’s no hope. Come on, where’s that Phil Lester optimism?”

Phil shrugs.

“You know, just because you look like me doesn’t mean you have to turn into an apathetic cynic.”

“How else will I trick people into thinking I’m you?”

“Now that was just uncalled for.”

The corner of Phil’s mouth twitches with the barest hint of a smile.

“Can I come in?” Dan asks even though it’s his room. Phil nods and moves aside, and Dan walks to his bed, sitting on the edge and patting the space beside him. Phil sits there without question.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says before Dan can apologise for breaking the mirror again.

Dan turns to him, confused. “What are you sorry for?”

Phil purses his lips before saying, “I promised you that I would fix this. I was so sure that I would find a way to switch us back. But…I don’t think I can.” He lowers his head, studying his hands where they lie folded on his lap. “I’m sorry, Dan. I failed you.”

Dan is silent for a moment. Then he says, voice just above a whisper, “You’re so full of shit.”

Phil lifts his head. “Pardon?”

“Phil, I don’t know exactly where you got the idea that it’s your job to clean up my messes, but it’s really, really not.”

“But you were so upset yesterday…”

“Because I knew I’d done something stupid and gotten us both into a pickle. It was never the pickle itself that bothered me that much. It was feeling like I was ruining your life again.”

“You have never, ever ruined my life.”

Dan chuckles, low and half-hearted. “A fine pair we are. A couple of self-deprecating messes.”

“The messiest.” Phil smiles again. This time it’s definitely intentional. “But at least we’re messes together, eh?”

Dan grins and bumps their shoulders together. Phil nudges him back.

“Come on,” Dan says, standing. “We can strategize again tomorrow. For now, how about dinner? I think we have some leftover pizza.”

Phil starts to stand up too. “Only if we also watch a…” He trails off, mouth going slack.

“Phil?”

Phil slaps a hand over his eyes. “Oh. Oh, I am so _stupid._ ” He plops back down on the end of the bed.

“I would assure you that you aren’t, but I think maybe you should tell me about your epiphany first.”

Phil lowers his hand to glare at Dan. “Movies,” he says.

Dan waits. When Phil doesn’t offer any additional explanation, Dan says, “Alright. Good thing I waited. Your epiphany was stupid.”

“Dan, how many body swap movies have we seen?”

Dan thinks for a moment. “Not that many, actually. At least in my case.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “But you’ve seen at least one, right? Think…Freaky Friday.”

“The one with Lindsay Lohan or the original?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“But what if we’re thinking about two completely different Freaky Fridays?”

“Fine, think of the original.”

“I haven’t seen that one.”

Phil growls in frustration. “Lindsay Lohan, then. You’ve seen that one?”

Dan nods.

“Okay. So before Lindsay Lohan and her mom—”

“Jamie Lee Curtis.”

“Yes, thank you, Dan,” Phil replies flatly. “Before they can switch back, they have to gain a better understanding of each other. Walk a mile in each other’s shoes, so to speak.”

“Okay, but…we already have basically the same daily schedule. I’m not sure walking in each other’s shoes really works when you’re walking to the same place.”

“True. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more respect.”

“We respect each other.”

“You called me stupid not five minutes ago.”

“No, I called your _epiphany_ stupid.”

“And there’s another thing,” Phil says. “Have you noticed that we can’t agree on anything anymore?”

“That’s not true.”

Phil raises his eyebrows pointedly.

Dan sighs. “Okay, maybe we have been bickering a bit more than usual lately. Maybe.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Dan shrugs, then sits on the bed next to Phil. “I don’t know.” A moment passes before he continues. “We’ve done a lot of stuff recently, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the tours. The books. Trying to post videos to multiple channels while dealing with the tours and the books. It feels like we’ve only recently gotten a chance to breathe, and now that we have a bit of free time, I don’t know what to do with it all. You’d think it’d be relaxing, but it’s not.”

“I think I know what you mean.” Phil turns to face him, bringing his knees to his chest. “Like, we’ve done all this cool stuff, and now the world is waiting for the next big thing. Only I don’t know what it is either.”

“Exactly! I feel so lazy. Which is weird, because I used to like being lazy, but then I got used to not being lazy and now doing nothing just makes me feel a bit…”

“Restless?”

“Restless,” Dan agrees.

“And you think that’s why you’ve been acting like a brat?”

“I think that’s a big part…hey!”

Phil muffles his laughter with his hand.

“So what about you?”

“What _about_ me?” Phil asks.

“Oh come on, don’t act like you haven’t been a sarcastic little shit lately.”

To Dan’s surprise, Phil doesn’t argue with this; he simply smirks. “Been spending too much time with you, I suppose.”

“See! This is the kind of behaviour I’m talking about!”

This time, Phil doesn’t try to hide his laughter.

Dan huffs. “Well. As fun as this little talk has been, it still hasn’t changed us back.”

“Maybe we just need to go a little deeper then,” Phil suggests.

Dan feels his pulse quicken. “Deeper?”

Phil, a moment ago the picture of innocence, grins devilishly. “Yeah.” He puts his arms behind his head and falls back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “So like, anything we’ve been keeping from each other. Secrets.”

Dan starts to sweat.

“So?” Phil cranes his neck to look at him. “Anything you’d like to share?”

“M-me?” Dan stammers, grasping around for any excuse not to have to do this. “Why do I have to go first? Don’t _you_ have anything you want to say?”

Phil is quiet for a moment, eyebrows lowering in concentration. Finally, he says, “I lied. It isn’t the cereal goblin who’s been stealing all the Crunchy Nut. It’s me.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “I think the idea is to reveal information we _don’t_ already know.”

The room goes quiet again.

“I don’t really have existential crises anymore,” Dan confesses suddenly. “I just got so used to lying on the floor that I started to kind of like it.”

Phil nods as though he isn’t surprised. “Sometimes I exaggerate when I talk about the weird people I meet because I want you to think my life is more interesting.”

“Like I could ever find you boring,” Dan half-chuckles. “I almost always watch your liveshows, even though I say I don’t.”

“I watch yours too.”

They both smile.

“Oh! Remember how you couldn’t find the other Wii remote last week and I told you I didn’t know where it was?”

Dan’s smile fades. “Phil, what’d you do with the remote?”

“I broke it.”

“How many times have I told you to wear the wrist strap?”

“At least I didn’t break an old and possibly important mirror. That’s seven years of bad luck in addition to not helping us switch back, by the way.”

“Touché.” Dan thinks for a moment. “You know how I read fanfic ironically? Yeah, not always ironic.”

“You mean that 50k Makoharu fic on your laptop wasn’t just for giggles?”

Dan narrows his eyes. “You’ve been going through my internet history.”

“You left the tab open. And you said I could use your laptop when mine wasn’t working. Not my fault.”

The conversation comes to another halt.

“Well?” Dan says.

“Well what?”

“It’s your turn.”

“No it isn’t.” Phil sits up. “I just admitted to finding your fanfiction.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does. Besides, I went twice in a row earlier.”

“When?”

“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s your turn, Dan. Stop stalling.”

“I am not stalling!” He crosses his arms and glares at Phil.

Phil stares back.

Dan grits his teeth.

Phil remains perfectly still.

Their neighbour’s dog barks twice and then stops. Somewhere in the darkening London streets, a siren wails.

“I thought about you while I jerked off this morning,” Dan suddenly blurts.

Phil’s eyes go wide. It seems that Dan has finally managed to surprise him. “W-well,” he says, turning red from the tips of his ears down to his neck, “that’s, erm, I mean, you are in my…in my body, after all. So. So I suppose that…that would, erm…make sense…for you to, erm…”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

Phil opens his mouth again. This time, no words come out.

“The first time,” Dan continues, words spilling out now, years’ worth of pent-up feelings flowing freely from the first crack in the dam, “was before we even met. Before you even knew my name. Just watching your videos was enough to get me riled up.”

Phil makes a strange noise deep in his throat.

“I actually stopped for a while when we started living together. I felt like I was doing something wrong, thinking such dirty things about you and touching myself with you only a wall away. Plus I was worried about being caught. But I eventually gave in again. I couldn’t help it. And this morning…literally being inside your body, having permission to touch you in ways I never thought I would…” Dan closes his eyes, remembering the feeling of his hand around Phil’s thick cock. In the present, it twitches.

“Dan?”

Phil’s voice sounds absolutely wrecked. When Dan reopens his eyes, he is met with thin brown irises around wide pupils that are much closer than he remembers them being.

“Yeah?” Dan says, his own voice gravely.

“I thought of another way to break the spell.”

Dan blinks. “What’s that?” Even as he asks the question, he finds himself leaning in. Phil mirrors his actions, and before either of them know it, their lips meet softly, carefully, and then a bit more firmly.

Dan raises his hand to Phil’s jaw to pull him closer. His skin is soft.

Perhaps a little too soft.

Dan pulls back. The eyes that meet his are just as brown as ever and glimmering with guilt.

“Sorry,” Dan says right as Phil says the same thing.

“It isn’t you…”

“It’s not that it wasn’t nice, it’s just that…”

“You look like me…”

“It’s just a bit weird…”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

They stare at each other for a moment before finding anywhere else to look. Phil picks the window. Dan picks the door.

“Well,” says Phil. He clears his throat. “That didn’t work.”

“Nope,” says Dan. “And neither did the, er, talking thing, I guess.”

“It would appear not.”

“What now?”

Phil shrugs. “I don’t know. But I think—” he interrupts himself with a yawn “—maybe it’s time to call it a day and try again tomorrow.”

“Call it a day? It’s barely past 7 o’clock!” Dan says even as he feels a yawn of his own coming on. “And didn’t you just take a nap?”

“But I’m—” Phil yawns again, stretches his arms out to the side, melts into the mattress “—so _tired._ ”

“Phil, are you—” yawn “—just going to fall asleep in my bed?”

“Just resting my eyes for a bit,” Phil mumbles, barely intelligible.

“Ugh, fine,” Dan says, too exhausted to argue. He finds himself falling back on the bed too, his face close enough to Phil’s to feel every warm puff of breath against his cheek. “But just—” yawn “—for a minute.”

Somewhere in his sleep-fogged brain, Dan registers a feeling of contentment, and he realises that, if he had to go through this stressful, magic-induced ordeal with anyone, he is glad it was with his best friend.

He barely has time to ponder this before his eyes slip closed and his mind drifts into a dreamless sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. School and writer’s block have been kicking my ass. Anyway, this is the final chapter. Hope it was sorta worth the wait.

Dan is warm.

Not just warm, he realises as the fog of sleep lifts from his brain. It’s stifling in here, rays of sunshine falling through his open blinds onto his eyelids and the weight of something heavy draped over his body. He opens his eyes, blinking in the mid-morning light until his vision focuses and lands on the tuft of black hair tucked under his chin, the pale arms wrapped around his torso, the long legs intertwined with his own.

“Phiiil,” he whines, nudging his friend’s shoulder. “Get off me.”

Phil makes a small noise of protest and snuggles in closer.

“Come on, Phil. I’m getting hot.”

“You’ve always been hot,” Phil mumbles.

Dan’s sweaty cheeks grow even warmer. “If you’re awake enough to flirt with me, you’re awake enough to get up. Come on, we have to work on finding a way to break the—”

Dan stops himself mid-sentence. He looks around his room, noticing how every picture and plushie is perfectly in focus despite the fact that Phil’s glasses lie discarded next to his hip. He looks down at his hands, broad, tan fingers flexing uncertainly. And then he looks back at Phil, his eyes still closed, sunlight catching on his cheekbones and giving his skin a moonlike glow. Dan stares at him for a solid minute.

And then he starts to laugh.

He laughs long and loud, tipping his head back onto his pillows and letting it out until he is gasping for air. Phil pulls a pillow over his head to block out the noise, but Dan just yanks it away again. “ _Phil_.”

“Phil’s asleep,” says Phil, reaching around for the pillow. When he can’t find it, he rolls over and buries his face in the mattress instead. “Come back later.”

“Fine,” Dan says, shrugging despite the fact that Phil can’t see him. “Don’t get up. But you should know that you’re missing out on the exciting news to end all exciting news.”

“Unless Sarah Michelle Gellar is at the door, it can wait a few hours.”

“It just so happens that she is. Too bad I’m going to steal your glasses so you won’t be able to find her.”

“Won’t you be the one needing my glasses, since we’re—” Phil stops short. He rolls onto his side, cracking one eye open, then the other. He stares at Dan. Rubs his eyes. Stares some more.

And then he starts laughing too.

“I can’t see a bloody thing!”

“You might be the first person to say that sentence and actually sound happy about it.”

“I can’t even see your nose!” Phil gasps between laughs.

Dan smiles as he reaches behind himself to retrieve Phil’s glasses. “There,” he says, sliding them onto Phil’s face. “Now do I look like Voldemort?”

Phil smirks. “You know, the dark lord was supposed to be rather attractive in his younger days.”

“Is that your way of telling me you don’t think I’ll age well?”

“It’s my way of telling you you’d look sexy without a nose.”

Dan lets out a bark of laughter even as he feels himself blush. “Well. I look like myself again, anyway. Whatever that means.” At this, Phil gives him a genuine smile, so bright and radiant that Dan feels like he should look away lest he be blinded, but he just can’t do it. “What do you think did it? Broke the spell, I mean.”

Phil shrugs. “Delayed effect of the kissing?”

“No way. You think that actually worked?”

“Well what else could it have been?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s just a bit…cliché?”

“The real world doesn’t care about clichés, Dan. There’s no rule that says that life can’t mimic bad fanfiction.”

“I mean, I guess. But—”

“Just be happy we switched back at all,” Phil says, his voice equal parts annoyance and fondness. “Besides…” He hooks his ankle around Dan’s and rolls them over. “Whether that kiss was what switched us back or not, you can’t deny that it was…interesting.”

“Just interesting?” Dan asks, a smile creeping onto his face.

“Well. I suppose it might be a little more than interesting now that we look like ourselves.” He inclines his head until his lips hover mere millimeters away from Dan’s. “Care to find out?”

* * *

It turns out that kissing Phil is a lot nicer when Dan doesn’t feel like he’s kissing himself. So nice, in fact, that Dan subtly asks if Phil would like to stay in bed a while longer, to which Phil not-so-subtly responds that he’ll only stay if Dan tells him more about that wanking material of his. They end up staying there until noon, at which point food and the toilet become necessities.

Things change after that day. And while Dan is usually wary of change, he finds that he rather enjoys leaning close to Phil when they watch movies without fear that he’s overstepping bounds. He likes having someone drag him to bed when he can’t stop pacing and hold him until his mind quiets down enough for him to sleep. He feels whole when he loops his arms around Phil’s waist on lazy mornings, kissing him until he doesn’t need coffee in order to stop being grumpy.

Oh yeah, and the sex. That’s great too.

Other changes come more slowly. Like the tiny hints about their relationship that they start slipping into the videos they film together. They start off trying to hide their new relationship from the internet, but somehow the viewers notice it anyway, even the more rational fans admitting that something between them has definitely changed. Gradually, they grow too lazy to bother hiding their meaningful glances and gentle touches.

And then, one day when they are doing a joint liveshow, Phil gets caught in a giggle fit over some stupid joke Dan made, his head tilted back and his eyes scrunched in mirth, and Dan can’t take it anymore. In one swift movement, he reaches out to cradle Phil’s face in his hands and places a soft kiss upon his lips. Phil’s giggles die down immediately, but happiness still shines in his eyes, and Dan knows it’s okay. They go back to the liveshow with matching smiles and a willful ignorance of the all-caps messages flying through the chat.

Though there are times when it seems as though it never will, the hype eventually fades.

Even the loudest fans lose interest eventually, and each new batch seems a little quieter than the last, finding their videos at a time when their occasional on-screen kisses and vague answers are already old news. The fan base is shrinking, too. Their videos never reach one million views anymore, but a few long-timers still show up for Pinof 10 to share in their nostalgia and fond smiles, to thank them for the laughs and wish them well on the road ahead.

Because the road has not dead-ended, even when they post their quiet farewell. Even when they finally decide that there isn’t much in London left for them anymore. Even when they find a nice house for sale on the outskirts of Manchester, not too far from Phil’s parents. Even when they start packing the last almost-decade of their lives into boxes.

Leaving the London flat won’t be as difficult as he initially feared, Dan thinks as he looks around the barren walls just days before the move. It doesn’t look like home anymore; it hardly even looks familiar, but he can almost see their posters and knickknacks and their little yellow dog in their newer, nicer lounge. He can picture the three of them — himself and Phil and Suki — curled up by the fireplace, taking walks around the quiet neighbourhood, stargazing in their big backyard.

But they aren’t quite ready to go yet. There’s a corner of Dan’s old bedroom (which he stopped sleeping in years ago) piled with things they’ve never had a good place to put elsewhere in the flat, all broken props and useless trinkets and a fine layer of dust. They have been putting off sorting through it for some time now, but Dan decides it’s finally time, as Phil is currently taking Suki for her afternoon walk and can’t protest every time Dan tries to throw something away. He sets a trashcan and a cardboard box on the floor, sits down between them, and gets to work.

Most of the pile ends up in the bin, and Dan listens to music with only one earbud so he’ll be ready to run for it if his hoarder of a fiancé gets back early. As he nears the bottom of the pile, something catches his eye.

He picks up the leather-bound book and opens it gingerly. The spine groans, but the pages hold together as he thumbs through them. He finds the page he’s looking for, the name of the spell coming back to him even after all these years.

He smiles at the Latin words, at the memories they hold. The spell might have caused a lot of trouble at the time, but he is glad for it now. Even if he isn’t sure he buys into Phil’s adamant belief that they broke the spell with ‘true love’s kiss,’ he’s pretty sure the whole ordeal gave them the push they needed to get together.

There is an unspoken rule that Dan and Phil don’t mess around with magic anymore. They are lucky that things worked out the first time, and neither really wants to push their luck with a second attempt. This book hasn’t been touched since the day it went in the pile, maybe a day or two after they switched back.

Still. It’s such an important part of their history together. Dan can’t just throw it away.

He closes the book and is just about to place it back in the box when he notices something.

There are words etched into the spine, probably originally painted black or gold, but the paint has long since worn off. He runs his finger over them, mouthing the Latin to himself. Out of curiosity, he pulls out his phone and Googles the phrase.

He clicks on link after link just to be sure, but each one confirms the same thing: roughly translated, the book’s title is “Spells That Last Forty-Eight Hours.”

Dan sits there for a long time, cross-legged on the bedroom floor, just staring between the book and his phone.

And then he laughs.

He laughs until tears stream down his cheeks, and he knows that Phil will be home any minute and might think he has finally snapped, but he can’t help himself.

True love’s kiss, his arse.

He can’t wait to see Phil’s face when he tells him.

Except…

Dan looks down at his left hand, at the thin, silver band wrapped around his finger. It’s somewhat silly that there’s going to be a second (even more expensive) ring joining it soon when Dan has made it clear that he would have been fine with just the one. But Phil is a romantic at heart, even if he won’t admit it in so many words.

On second thought, Dan thinks, maybe he’ll just let Phil keep believing that they can conquer magic with their love.

Besides, it was Dan’s fault they switched bodies in the first place. No need to give Phil a reason to start holding that over his head again.

Down the hall, a door opens and closes. Clumsy footfalls and excited toenail clicks echo off the entryway floor, and a voice calls, “Dan, we’re back!”

Dan smiles as he turns his head towards the source of the sound. He spares the spell book one last fond pat before placing it in the box with all the other things he’s sure Phil won’t let him get rid of, gets to his feet, and leaves the room to greet the rest of his life.


End file.
